Orange County's 69th Assembly District has always produced some of the region's most bruising political campaigns, and this season's high-priced slugfest has held true to form. Democratic Assemblyman Tom Umberg, 37, and Republican challenger Jo Ellen Allen, 46, have spent nearly $1 million combined, and they have used most of the campaign cash to batter each other with political mail as indelicate as an uppercut.

Tom Umberg has a score to settle. Orange County's last Democratic state legislator, the man who lost to Republican Dan Lungren in the 1994 attorney general's race, is helping to direct a group of two dozen Democratic campaign guerrillas offering counter-spin to the GOP convention blitz.

Vacancies in half a dozen statewide offices in this week's California primary resulted in opening up the political vineyards to a new crop of candidates--among them a Latino political pro, a gay bureaucrat, a businesswoman and political novice--all promising spirited races in November. The winners in these so-called "down-ballot" races below the rank of governor had faced a number of obstacles in Tuesday's primary.

It's straight out of Boy's Life magazine, the sort of tale that prompts political cynics around here to arch an eyebrow. But Tom Umberg recites it unabashedly. Some kids want to be cowboys or astronauts; Umberg always yearned to become a big-time prosecutor--to put bad guys behind bars, to mete out truth and justice.

Democratic Assemblyman Tom Umberg announced his candidacy Thursday for state attorney general and immediately went on the attack, saying that Republican incumbent Dan Lungren has lost the war on crime. Umberg, a former federal prosecutor and the only Orange County Democrat in the Legislature, vowed to focus on juvenile crime to help keep first-time offenders from becoming revolving-door felons.

Despite his pledge just five days ago that he would not attack his Democratic rival, Assembly candidate Jerry Yudelson blasted his primary opponent Tuesday as being the handpicked choice of Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, who "only wants someone he can control." In a written statement, Yudelson also once again referred to his rival, Tom Umberg, as a "yuppie lawyer from Irvine."

Orange County law enforcement authorities and human rights advocates on Monday applauded the enactment of two new laws aimed at fighting what officials view as a rising trend in hate crimes. The laws, which go into effect on Jan. 1, will stiffen penalties for people engaging in violent or threatening behavior based on race, gender, religion, age, disabilities or sexual preference.

Brian O'Leary Bennett, a longtime aide to Garden Grove Congressman Robert K. Dornan, unfurled a list of big-name Republican supporters Monday as he became the first candidate to enter an upcoming special election for an open state Senate seat in central Orange County. Gov. Pete Wilson is expected to call the special election for next spring in order to fill the seat now held by state Sen. Edward R. Royce (R-Anaheim), who was elected last month to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Call it the soft sell from some heavy hitters. Assemblyman Tom Umberg stood in mottled shade Monday during a Labor Day picnic at Santa Ana High School, where the rallying cry was protecting the interests of labor. But a handful of private conversations focused on a different topic. Umberg (D-Anaheim) is one of four Assembly members being lobbied to vote as early as today in favor of the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Protection Act, a bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry.

Assemblyman Tom Umberg's political allies pledged their continued support Thursday after the Anaheim Democrat, who is seeking a state Senate seat, disclosed his four-year extramarital affair. Colleagues in Orange County and Sacramento, along with some political consultants, said the revelation probably wasn't enough to derail his candidacy next year. State Sen.